Sunday, May 20, 2012

Meet My Blue-Eyed Yankee

This week's six introduces you to Mickey Royal, one of the three boys who fell in love with Jeana at the fifth grade honors program. This scene takes place well into the book and gives a few things away, but it does such a great job of showing just how driven Mickey is about everything important to him that I had to use it. This is also one of those times I'm grateful that I write really, really long sentences!

After watching Mickey crush the ball repeatedly one night, the park manager asked him if he played anywhere locally. When he learned Mickey would be playing for the University of South Alabama in the fall, the manager offered him access to the cages late at night, along with a pass-key so he wouldn’t have to use any money. In return, Mickey promised to get the man tickets to the Jags’ games.

Mickey stayed in the cage every night until he was so exhausted that he thought he might be able to sleep in the bed where he’d made love to Jeana without the memories torturing him with the ghostly touch of her hands on his skin, teasing him with the scent of her hair on his pillow, and mocking him in the dark with the whispered promises she hadn’t meant.

It wasn’t something he could talk about with his mom or anyone else. The only person who would have understood why he went there was the reason he had to go.